


The Trash Robot Who Loved Me

by melodiousb



Series: The Continuing Adventures of Trash Robot [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, New York Rangers, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 18:03:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11834112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousb/pseuds/melodiousb
Summary: “It’s good,” says Kevin quickly. “It’s—even if you don’t want to do anything more than that. I like it when you sleep here.”“I want to do more than that,” says Chris.





	The Trash Robot Who Loved Me

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pasha and Meredith for reading this before I posted it and saying nice things about it, and to Ras for metaphorical handholding above and beyond the call of duty. And for offering "Do Robots Dream of Human Sheep?" as a possible title.

Chris figures out kissing pretty quickly. Kevin doesn’t know if being a quick learner is a robot thing or a Chris thing. Either way, he’s enjoying it—enough that he’s not thinking too hard about how much he wants to touch Chris, or how much he wants Chris’s hands on him. And he wants both of those things pretty badly.

Chris is the one to break away and ask, “Do you want to go to your room?”

“Yes,” says Kevin. “Do you?”

“Yes,” says Chris, and holds Kevin’s hand all the way to the bedroom. It’s weird, because they slept here together for almost a month, but this feels new.

“Do you have to be back at Rick’s tonight?”

Chris shakes his head. “I told them I might stay over. Is that okay?”

“It’s good,” says Kevin quickly. “It’s—even if you don’t want to do anything more than that. I like it when you sleep here.”

“I want to do more than that,” says Chris. “Is that okay?”

Kevin nods once, hard. Chris looks at him, unblinking, lips parted, and pulls his shirt over his head.

Kevin remembers how startlingly smooth Chris’s skin was under his shirt, the first time they kissed. It looks different, too. The parts of Chris that show when he’s dressed are hyperrealistic—hair on his arms, blue veins in his hands—but under his shirt he looks like a mannequin, with molded pecs and abs and pale, undifferentiated skin.

“Will you touch me?” Chris asks, and Kevin realizes he’s been staring. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Where—uh. What do you want me to do?”

Chris shakes his head. “I liked it when you touched me before.”

“Okay,” says Kevin. He reaches out and runs a hand over Chris’s chest and down to his stomach. Chris doesn’t react. “Is that—?”

“Keep going,” says Chris. 

So Kevin keeps touching him. At first, he just strokes his whole hand over Chris’s chest and stomach. Then, after Chris lies down, he finds himself tracing the ridges in Chris’s stomach with his fingertips. There’s no noise except for one fan, barely audible beneath Chris’s skin. Then Chris tells him to keep going again, and his voice sounds sped up. Kevin looks at his face and it’s contorted, like Chris is trying and failing to find the right expression. Kevin honestly finds it kind of cute.

Something clicks, and Chris’s face goes still. Another fan comes on.

“Chris?” Kevin says. For a second he’s convinced he’s broken him. 

Chris laughs delightedly. “I think you overloaded my sensors,” he says. He grins at Kevin. “Do it again.”

And Kevin—if Kevin had fans inside him, they would all be switching on at once. He puts his mouth on Chris’s chest, kissing and sucking lightly, and slides one hand around to the small of Chris’s back. Chris says something so garbled Kevin can’t understand it, but he’s still pressing up against Kevin’s mouth, so Kevin doesn’t stop to ask questions.

Later on Kevin will try to figure out why he was so turned on, and decide it doesn’t matter. There are more fans going now, and Chris’s skin hums under his lips. The click of the sensor rebooting comes a lot more quickly this time.

“Chris,” says Kevin, resting his face against Chris’s stomach. He sticks his hand down his pants and squeezes his dick. He’s so hard. 

Chris rolls sideways to look at him. He watches Kevin for a moment and them says, “Can I help?”

“Please,” says Kevin. “I mean. If you want.”

Chris touches the front of Kevin’s sweatpants, his hand fitting over Kevin’s hand inside them. “I watched porn,” he says, unexpectedly.

“You—“ says Kevin, and stops. 

“I wanted to know what people do,” says Chris. “I wanted to know what you wanted.”

Kevin kisses him, letting go of his dick to cup Chris’s face in both hands. Chris turns his face to smell Kevin’s hand—another inexplicably hot thing.

“Was that—“ Kevin’s face feels hot and he can barely get the words out, but he wants to know, wants to have this to think about. “When was that?” He’s imagining Chris confused after Kevin kissed him, wanting more and not knowing what to want.

“October 28th through November 2nd,” says Chris. And while Kevin is still reeling from that, he pushes Kevin’s sweatpants off his hips.

Kevin’s had sex with guys twice—well, once before. Once and a half. And one of the things he liked was knowing that the person touching his dick had one too. But—Chris is definitely a man, but Kevin doesn’t think he’s ever seen a penis before. There isn’t anything he wants more than Chris’s hand on his dick right this second, but he makes himself say, “you don’t have to do anything.”

“I want to,” says Chris. His hand wraps around Kevin’s dick, tentative, and Kevin suddenly remembers that Chris’s hands are built for compacting trash, and shivers.

“You can—just a little bit tighter,” he says, and talks Chris through tightening his grip until it’s just right. Kevin makes an choked little noise and Chris snatches his hand away. 

“No,” says Kevin. “I mean, yes, that was perfect.” A second later, it’s perfect again, and Kevin makes a lot of encouraging noises so Chris knows what’s working for him. Everything’s working for him, really, especially when Chris starts kissing him again. Kevin tries to hold out, but he comes pretty quickly.

Chris wants to do, like, a postmortem right away. “Was that good?” he asks. “Would it have been better if it was slower? Did you want my hand to be warmer, or—“

“Give me a minute,” says Kevin.

“Okay,” says Chris, but it’s definitely less than a minute later when he says, “Can I clean you?”

Kevin smiles helplessly. Of course Chris wants to clean up. But he doesn’t really expect—he’s surprised when Chris turns and starts licking Kevin’s stomach clean. Not a bad kind of surprised. Chris’s tongue on his dick is sort of too much, but he doesn’t ask him to stop.

“It was good?” Chris asks when he’s done, and is lying next to Kevin again.

“Really good,” says Kevin, and tugs Chris closer until Chris’s head is resting on Kevin’s shoulder. “Was it good for you?” He feels sort of awkward asking, like the question is too polite for the level of intimacy they’re at. The level of intimacy they’ve been at since a few weeks after Chris’s arrival, probably. But he needs to know that Chris is all the way on board, and he can’t take anything for granted yet.

“I liked it,” says Chris. “I liked everything.”

“And you’ll tell me if you ever don’t like something, right?”

“Yes, Kevin.”

“It’s not a stupid question,” says Kevin.

“Well,” says Chris. “Only a little bit.” He watches Kevin undress and turn out the light, but doesn’t take his pants off or put his shirt back on. The pants he wears are practically pajamas, anyway. 

Kevin gets back into bed and pulls Chris close again. “I missed this,” he says.

Chris twists around and kisses the tip of Kevin’s nose, and smiles when Kevin does. “Me too,” he says. He looks like he’s going to say something, but instead he turns around again. Kevin puts his arm around Chris’s waist and his face against the back of Chris’s neck. 

“I’m setting my timer for seven,” Chris says.

“Cool,” says Kevin, and kisses the back of Chris’s ear. Then Chris goes completely quiet and still. It should be weird, maybe, but Kevin is very, very happy.

 

Normally Kevin would wait until the coffee is ready, but he gets up when Chris does, sleepily follows him into the kitchen, and rests his chin on Chris’s shoulder while he starts the machine. He doesn’t mind making the coffee when Chris isn’t here, but he likes it when Chris does it.

It’s a practice morning, which means everyone gets up around the same time. Gracia comes into the kitchen first, just as Kevin is sitting down with his coffee. She says “Chris!” and then she looks between them and says, “ _Chris_.” Kevin looks up and Chris has a huge smile on his face. 

Kevin’s a little jealous, actually, because Chris has obviously talked to her about him. But—why shouldn’t he? It’s good that Chris has people he talks to. And then a few minutes later Gracia comes around behind Kevin’s chair and pats him on the head and whispers, “You did good,” and after that he feels pretty okay about it.

Brady greets Chris like it’s still normal for him to be in their kitchen in the morning. Jimmy keeps looking between Kevin and Chris like he’s trying to figure them out. If he knows anything, Kevin isn’t sure how he knows it. Did he suspect something before? Is it Chris’s bare feet? Chris usually wears gray cloth slip-on sneakers, but he took them off to get into bed last night, and he hasn’t put them back on. He’s always taken off his shoes to get into Kevin’s bed, but Kevin can’t remember him walking around the penthouse with bare feet before. Then Kevin realizes he’s getting turned on thinking about Chris’s feet, and tries to think about something else.

Anyway, if Jimmy is trying to figure out what’s going on, Kevin following Chris into his bedroom is probably a good clue.

“I’m taking care of the kids tonight,” says Chris, reaching for his shoes. “And I know you’re gone tomorrow and Sunday. But Monday Rick and Jess and the kids are going to Columbus.”

Kevin sits down on the bed. “Oh, shit,” he says. “I’m supposed to go to Boston next week.”

“Oh,” says Chris. He sounds—Kevin doesn’t know how he could have ever doubted that Chris’s feelings were for real.

“You could come with,” he says, but even before he’s finished speaking he knows it’s a bad idea. He can’t bring Chris to stay with his brother.

“Come here?” he says, and Chris sits down next to him. Kevin leans against him a little. “I could cancel,” he says quietly.

Chris shakes his head. “I can shut down for a few days. I won’t even know you’re gone.”

“I’m staying,” Kevin decides, because he can’t stand the thought of Chris standing alone and unconscious in an empty apartment for days. “It’s fine. I didn’t have anything special going on. I’d rather be with you.”

“Really?” asks Chris.

Kevin rests his head on Chris’s shoulder. “Chris,” he says. “You know.”

“Yeah,” says Chris, and he sounds happier.

 

“What’s going on with you and Chris?” Jimmy asks, about five minutes into their drive.

Kevin isn’t sure how to answer that. He looks over at Brady, in the passenger seat. Brady shrugs. Brady’s a good guy.

“Are you fucking him?” Jimmy asks.

“Uh,” says Kevin. “Kind of?” “Fucking” doesn’t really seem like the right word. “We haven’t really talked about it, but I think he’s my boyfriend now.”

“He’s a robot,” says Jimmy flatly.

“Yeah, I noticed,” says Kevin. He glances at Brady, mostly because he can’t get a good look at Jimmy in the rearview mirror. Brady shrugs again. Not helpful. 

“How does that even work?” Jimmy asks. This is exactly what Jimmy sounded like when he was about thirteen. Kevin wouldn’t have wanted to live with him if he’d known Jimmy was going to, like, revert.

“It works like none of your business,” he says. And then, knowing it’s a bad time to say it but later will be worse, he adds, “By the way, I’m not going to Boston next week. I’m staying home. With Chris.”

“You—“ says Jimmy. “Kev. I was going to have it to myself next week.”

“We won’t cramp your style,” says Kevin. “You can still throw your wild parties or whatever. I’m not your dad.” Jimmy’s not going to be throwing any parties. He’s a giant nerd. Usually Kevin finds that endearing.

“Fuck you,” says Jimmy.

“Language, Jimbo,” Kevin chides. Jimmy gives him the finger in the rearview mirror. “I’ve changed my mind,” says Kevin. “I am your dad, and you’re grounded.”

Brady laughs.

“I hate you both,” says Jimmy, but the mood is lighter for the rest of the drive.

On the way into the locker room, Kevin nudges Brady. “You’re not…creeped out or anything?” he asks.

“Nah,” says Brady. “I mean, I know he’s a robot, but—I’ve seen him be pretty human.”

Kevin waits for more, but Brady doesn’t elaborate.

Later, Rick skates up to Kevin and says, “Chris stayed over last night?” 

Kevin’s smile is completely involuntary. 

“I don’t want to know,” says Rick, but he’s smiling, too.

 

Chris comes over on Monday morning, when Kevin and Jimmy are sleeping late and Brady and Gracia are doing some last-minute packing. If Kevin knows them at all, that means Gracia’s ready to go, but she’s repacking Brady’s stuff because his suitcase won’t close.

Kevin wakes up when Chris gets into bed with him. “Time’s it?” he mumbles.

“9:22 AM,” says Chris. “You don’t have to get up yet, but there’s coffee when you do.”

“I love you,” says Kevin, and falls back asleep in Chris’s arms.

They get up, eventually. Kevin’s not in any hurry. He’s coming off back to back games and a flight that got in at 3 AM, and he’s got five whole free days in front of him. It’s okay for breakfast to be lunch. Jimmy has already eaten, and he pointedly puts his shoes on and leaves when Chris and Kevin come into the living room.

“Is something wrong?” Chris asks.

“He’s being a brat,” says Kevin. “He—“ thought he was going to have the place to himself, Kevin was going to say, but he wants to be honest with Chris. “He’s feeling weird about you and me.”

Chris makes a face. “We could go to Rick’s,” he offers.

“No,” says Kevin. “He’s got to—we can’t hide at Rick’s forever, you know?”

“Okay,” says Chris, but a few minutes later he asks, “You would tell me if this was really wrong, right? You and me?”

“Yes,” says Kevin, emphatic. “It would be wrong if—if you didn’t think for yourself, and make your own decisions, but you do. And Jimmy knows that, he’s just…I don't think it’s about you being a robot at all. So he’ll come around, sooner or later.”

“Good,” says Chris. He leans back against Kevin’s shoulder and starts reading out the news. Kevin puts an arm around him and listens with half an ear while he plays a game on his phone. After a while Chris goes quiet.

“Kevin.”

“What’s up?” Kevin asks. Then he realizes he’s slipped his fingers under Chris’s collar, and he’s been idly stroking the place where Chris’s more sensitive skin meets the regular kind. “Oh,” he says, and he’s about to pull his hand away, but instead he asks, “Do you want me to stop?”

Chris shakes his head, so Kevin slides his hand further down. Once he’s paying more attention, he can hear the feedback he’s been wanting from Chris, the little hums and shifts in pitch that mean Chris is his version of really turned on. 

“Should I keep going?” Kevin asks, the first time Chris’s touch sensor clicks off. 

“Please,” says Chris, and turns to rest his face against Kevin’s arm. The second time, Kevin doesn’t ask. Chris skin is vibrating faintly, and he wants to see what happens next. 

The third time, Chris tries to say something, but it comes out sounding like a rewinding cassette tape. Kevin takes his hand away and Chris sits up. “That was nice,” he says.

Kevin grins. “I could keep going.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” says Chris. “But let’s try it.” He lies down with his head in Kevin’s lap and pulls his shirt up to expose his stomach. Kevin smoothes his hand over Chris’s fake abs, then rubs with a little more pressure. It’s a little like giving a massage, except he doesn’t have to press as hard. 

Chris doesn’t tell him to stop, so Kevin keeps going. He loses track of how many times Chris’s sensor’s failed when the hum of Chris’s fans gets to be louder than the click of the reset. He can feel Chris’s skin heating up under his fingers, and it’s almost uncomfortably hot when Chris suddenly grabs Kevin’s wrist.

“Chris?” says Kevin. His grip is tight, but not so tight that it’s a problem.

Chris makes a sound that isn’t particularly electronic, but definitely isn’t speech. He looks kind of dazed.

“Take your time,” says Kevin, and carefully refrains from touching Chris. He’s mostly hard, but he also kind of wants a snack.

Chris cools down slowly. After about fifteen minutes, he says, “I can talk now.”

“Cool,” says Kevin. “You feeling okay?”

“I feel really good,” says Chris. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” says Kevin. “Are you alright here? I’m going to get something to eat.”

“I’m fine,” says Chris. “Still cooling down.”

Kevin makes a salad and brings it back to eat sitting next to Chris. By the time he’s finished, Chris is sitting up again. “I don’t think I’m supposed to do stuff like that,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin.

“No, I liked it,” says Chris. “But we probably shouldn’t go that far. Not often.”

“Whatever you want,” says Kevin. Back when he was wanting Chris and not sure what to do about it, he’d tried to imagine what they could do together—what Chris could possibly want from Kevin. He feels really lucky that Chris wants…physical stuff. If he didn’t, Kevin would be okay without it, but it’s nice that they both have things that feel good, things they like to do for each other.

Kevin’s watching game video on his iPad when Chris says, “Do you want me to give you a blowjob?”

“Yes,” says Kevin, after a brief pause to a) make sure he heard that right and b) consider asking Chris if he’s sure. Chris offered; it’s okay to just say yes. And Kevin’s been thinking about Chris’s mouth on him since the other night.

“Do you want…tips?” Kevin asks, when Chris is on his knees in front of him. He’s given exactly one blowjob in his life, but he thought it went pretty well.

“The porn I watched was pretty comprehensive,” says Chris.

“Porn’s not always realistic,” Kevin points out. 

Chris smirks up at him. “I’m not always realistic.”

It starts well. Chris can do basically anything with his tongue, and that’s if you’re only including functions described in the manual. So, his tongue is pretty great. So are his lips. So is—everything about him, really, with special mentions going to his warm hand on Kevin’s thigh and the eager tilt of his head as he takes more of Kevin’s dick into his mouth.

After that it’s less good. Chris can get all of Kevin’s dick into his mouth, which is theoretically good. And Kevin’s going to come pretty fast, because the heat and pressure of whatever’s going on in Chris’s throat seem calculated to make that happen. But somehow Kevin’s not enjoying it like he was.

Afterwards, Chris looks up at him expectantly.

“Come here,” says Kevin.

Chris gets up and Kevin kisses him, hoping for a taste of himself in Chris’s mouth, but Chris has probably sterilized his mouth five times in the last two minutes. Kevin wonders if that’s automatic, or if Chris could turn it off for a while.

“Was it bad?” says Chris. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

“No,” says Kevin. “It was—parts of it were really good.” He doesn’t know what was wrong with the parts that weren’t, either. It just felt…impersonal, maybe, like what Kevin imagines sex with a sexbot would be like. Up until now, nothing he’s done with Chris has felt like that.

“Which parts?” Chris asks.

“Uh,” says Kevin. “Did you like parts of it?” And because Chris never went to kindergarten, he doesn’t say, “I asked you first.”

“The first part was fun,” says Chris. “The second part…” he sounds apologetic. “That was kind of boring.”

Kevin laughs. 

“What?” Chris asks.

If Kevin asked why Chris is so perfect, he doesn’t think Chris would have an answer, so he just says, “I thought the second part was kind of boring, too.”

They laze around for the rest of the day. Kevin orders takeout for dinner, and they’re in bed, talking, by the time they hear Jimmy get home. 

“What do you want to do tomorrow?” Kevin asks.

Chris shrugs. “Today was nice,” he says. “I don’t know. What do people do?”

“What, they don’t teach you that in porn?” Kevin teases.

“I watched a lot of TV shows, too,” says Chris, but he’s smiling.

 

It’s a good thing they had that first day to themselves, because Jimmy doesn’t leave them alone after that. He keeps insisting that Kevin come with him to places like the zoo, and the High Line—places where they’re inevitably going to run into a lot of fans. Also places that kind of suck in the middle of winter. Kevin invites Chris to come along, but Chris gets uncomfortable being outside for too long—partly the space and partly the people, he says—and Kevin doesn’t push.

Anyway, he’s there to warm Kevin up when he and Jimmy get home, and Kevin makes a point of being all over Chris in front of Jimmy. Jimmy looks uncomfortable when Kevin sits with his legs over Chris’s lap and his head on Chris’s shoulder, but he deserves it. Jimmy sits at the other end of the couch and retaliates by flipping through channels on the TV, which drives Chris a little crazy.

Kevin intercepts Jimmy on his way back from the bathroom and says, “I’m going to tell your mom you’re being a dick to my boyfriend.”

“You’re not going to tell my mom you have a boyfriend,” Jimmy scoffs. Actually, Kevin hasn’t told his own mom he has a boyfriend. He needs to get on that. “If you do I’m going to tell her it’s a robot,” Jimmy adds.

“Go ahead,” says Kevin. “She’ll love that. She’ll throw us a party.”

“Will not,” says Jimmy. He’s not thirteen, Kevin thinks. He’s five. 

“She’ll invite us over for dinner and she’ll think Chris is adorable,” says Kevin. “Dude, I _know_ your mom.”

Jimmy goes off in a huff, probably because he knows Kevin is right.

 

That night they give blowjobs another try, minus the deep-throating. It goes a lot better.

“Is this really fun for you?” Kevin asks.

“Yes,” says Chris. “You don’t have to ask every time.”

“Okay,” says Kevin. “Just checking.” But he’s a little skeptical. When Chris gets all overheated and touch-sensitive, it’s close enough to human arousal that Kevin gets off on it. He’s like a human who’s only into foreplay, or something, and Kevin’s embarrassingly into it. But…he knows Chris loves him, and he’s happy with that, but he’d like it if Chris was embarrassingly into him, too, and he doesn’t think Chris works like that.

The bye week is over too soon, and Chris is back sleeping at Rick’s most nights. Kevin hates it. It was so easy to get used to sleeping next to Chris again, and he’s on the road so much anyway. It doesn’t feel fair that Chris isn’t there all the time when he’s home.

The Nashes have Kevin over for dinner one night. It feels like a couple thing, but it’s kind of weird, because Chris doesn’t eat, and also he has to put the kids to bed. After dinner it’s kind of nice, though. Jessica and Rick have never treated Chris as anything less than a person—which is more than Kevin can say for himself—and it shows in how comfortable he is with them. And Kevin loves them—he has since he was a rookie. When Kevin puts his arm around Chris’s shoulders, it’s not the first time he’s done it, but it’s the first time he’s done it just because he wanted to, and not because he was trying to fuck with Jimmy. It feels good.

It’s been almost two years since Kevin was part of a couple hanging out with another couple, and he didn’t know it was something he missed. He just wishes Chris was coming home with him at the end of the night.

“What are you guys doing for the All Star break?” Jessica asks.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Kevin admits. “Are you guys going anywhere?”

“No,” says Rick. “We only just got back from Columbus, and traveling with the kids is tough.”

“Plus, if someone gets hurt, you might be headed to Tampa,” Chris points out.

Rick blushes, which is ridiculous, because he’s been to the All Star Game, like, five or six times.

“Come on, you’re not that far down that list,” Kevin says.

Rick shakes his head and Jess says, “You’re never going to get him to admit that.”

“So you guys are staying in town?” says Rick, and Kevin rolls his eyes at Jess but lets Rick change the subject. 

“I don’t know,” he says. He looks at Chris. “Jimmy’s going to, like, Harry Potter Land, but Gracia will be around.”

Probably Chris will enjoy that. He hasn’t gotten to hang out with Gracia much lately. Kevin’s kind of been monopolizing him.

“We could go somewhere,” Chris says slowly.

“Yeah?” says Kevin. “Anywhere in particular?” Now that he thinks about it, he’s kind of itching to get out of town. 

If Chris was anyone else, Kevin would suggest getting on a plane and going somewhere warm, but Chris doesn’t have ID, and Kevin doesn’t want to, like, pack him. And Chris doesn’t care about the cold weather, anyway.

“Not a beach,” says Chris.

“Okay,” says Kevin. “No beaches. I’ll think of something.”

He kisses Chris goodnight at the door, and says, “This not living together thing kind of sucks.”

“I’ll figure something out,” says Chris, which probably means he’ll try to get more comfortable going back and forth, but Kevin wasn’t trying to put pressure on him.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Kevin. “I’m pretty happy.”

 

Kevin asks Gracia for help because she knows Chris almost as well as he does.

“He gets kind of nervous when there’s a lot of people around,” she points out.

“I know,” says Kevin. “And I want—I think he could get more used to that, but I want this to be just us.”

“Maybe a fancy hotel?” she suggests. “A ski resort? One of those hotels in the Catskills?”

“I guess,” says Kevin. “Or a bed and breakfast. Something like that.”

“I bet you could rent a house for a weekend,” says Gracia. “Like, an Airbnb or something. Then you guys would be by yourselves. Brady and I went apple-picking upstate last year, and it was beautiful. I don’t know what it would be like, now, but…”

“No, that’s a really good idea,” says Kevin. “Thanks.”

“I’m pretty invested in you not disappointing him,” Gracia says. “Because if you do I’ll have to help hide the body.”

“Chris wouldn’t kill me for disappointing him,” says Kevin.

“No,” she agrees. “But I might.”

“Good to know,” says Kevin, and goes online to look at weekend rentals. He finds one that looks isolated and nice, without being too big for just the two of them, and books it. He can always cancel if Chris isn’t into it.

“It’s just an empty building with nothing around it?” Chris sounds incredulous, and Kevin realizes he’s never seen anything but New York City.

“It’s really small,” Kevin tries to explain. “There’s four rooms. And it’s in a field.”

“It sounds nice,” says Chris. “You won’t be lonely?”

“You’ll be there,” says Kevin, surprised.

“I will,” Chris agrees, and kisses him. 

Chris kisses him enough that Kevin has to believe he really likes it for himself, and not just because he knows Kevin does. Maybe that’s one of the reasons making out with him is so much fun: Kevin can enjoy it without worrying that Chris isn’t.

He falls back against the bed and pulls Chris down with him. Chris’s elbow hits a bruise on Kevin’s side and Kevin winces. Chris immediately sits up.

“It’s okay,” says Kevin. “I’ve just got—“ he pulls off his shirt so Chris can see the bruise and avoid it.

Chris traces the edges, where Kevin’s skin changes color. It’s big, covering a hand-sized patch of skin over Kevin’s ribs. Kevin shivers. “Keep touching me,” he says.

Chris smiles and moves his hand to Kevin’s chest. “Like what you do for me?” he asks.

“It feels good to me, too,” says Kevin. He kicks off his pants so that Chris will have more to touch.

Normally Kevin would be anxious for Chris’s hand on his dick right away, and it’s not like he doesn’t want that, but he also doesn’t want Chris’s exploring hands to stop. Chris looks absorbed and content, like when he defrosted the freezer, and he’s beautiful in the dim light from the window. He bends his head to Kevin’s left nipple and licks it, and Kevin lets out a long, shuddering breath.

“Okay?” Chris asks.

“ _Chris_ ,” says Kevin.

Chris laughs, and licks and kisses his way down Kevin’s chest. He sucks lightly at the skin over Kevin’s navel, and then harder.

“Yeah, fuck, Chris,” Kevin whispers. It almost hurts, but somehow that makes it better.

The mark Chris leaves on Kevin’s stomach is dark and symmetrical and unmistakeable. 

“Wow,” says Kevin, carefully brushing his fingers over it. “Maybe—maybe not in places where people can see.”

“But you liked it,” says Chris.

“Chris,” says Kevin. “I liked it a lot.” He pulls Chris down to kiss him. He moves his own hand to his dick, because he absolutely has to, and moans at how good it feels.

“Kevin,” says Chris, his voice clipped and sharp. “I want to do things to you; tell me what to do.”

“Jesus,” says Kevin. “Okay. Uh.” He rolls over and grabs the lube from his bedside table. Then he turns back to Chris. “Did your porn cover. Um. Fingering?”

Chris says, "I don't think so," which Kevin finds hard to believe, but okay. Kevin leans back against the headboard with his knees up and apart, and says, "Come here." He takes Chris's hand and smears lube onto his fingers. Then he guides Chris's hand down. He doesn't feel self-conscious around Chris a lot, but he's trying not to think too hard about what he's doing right now. He hasn’t done this, hasn’t had anyone else do it, but when Chris talked about doing things to him, this is what he thought of.

"Ah," says Chris, when Kevin touches Chris's finger to his hole. "This."

"Okay?" Kevin asks, and Chris nods quickly.That's good. Two of them that sort of know what they're doing is almost like one person that actually does.

Chris's finger presses in and Kevin bites down on his lip, determined not to make any noise until he figures out how he feels about this. Even just the tip of Chris's finger feels like a lot to have there, where usually there's nothing.

"Go slow," he says.

"Yeah," agrees Chris. He looks excited, and Kevin focuses on that. Or looks at that, at least, because he can't really think about anything that's not Chris's finger slowly pushing deeper inside him.

Chris's hands are strong and capable and Kevin's been paying attention to them for longer than he'd admit to anyone but Chris. They're sort of his most human-looking parts, but inside Kevin his finger feels too solid and unyielding and completely alien.

"Can you—" he says. "More lube?"

Chris reaches for the lube. "Your penis is less erect," he observes, and Kevin laughs. "What?"

"Your dirty talk could use some work," says Kevin. "No, don't worry about it." He mostly means that in reference to the dirty talk, but it also applies to his softening dick. "I want—try again."

Chris's finger slides in easier and deeper this time, and Kevin feels—he doesn't know how he feels. "More," he says. It's too much still, but he doesn't mind as much as he did. Chris twists his hand and works his finger in and out. It's—good is almost the right word. Kevin looks at Chris, and his eyes are flicking back and forth between his hand and Kevin's face so quickly that they don't ever seem to stop moving. It makes Kevin a little dizzy.

He slouches further down so he's not looking directly at Chris's face anymore, but he didn't really think this through, because he's also pushed down onto Chris's finger, and it's—

"Oh god," he says. "Keep— _Chris_."

"Yes," says Chris, and it sounds like a promise.

Kevin's focus narrows to Chris's finger withdrawing slowly and pressing deep inside of him over and over, relentless. "Faster," Kevin gasps, and when he opens his eyes Chris is looking at him like Kevin is a puzzle he wants to solve. Kevin grabs his dick and strokes it a couple of times and comes so hard his vision goes dark for a second.

Chris's finger is still inside Kevin, hard when he squeezes around it. "You can..." he says, and Chris slowly pulls it out.

Kevin knows Chris's finger isn't really that big, but it feels like he's left a gap behind, and Kevin wonders what it must be like to have a whole dick in your ass. He's kind of glad Chris doesn't have one.

"You liked that," Kevin says, watching Chris lick him clean. He shivers when the air hits the wet trails left behind by Chris's tongue.

"We both liked it," says Chris.

 

Jimmy's got a connecting flight to Orlando, so Kevin says goodbye to him at the airport. "Tell the house elf I said hi," Jimmy says.

"I'm not going to tell him you called him a house elf," says Kevin.

"That's okay," says Jimmy. "He'll know." He's right. It's not like he’s called Chris anything else recently.

"Are you going to stop giving him a hard time anytime soon?" Kevin asks.

Jimmy shrugs. "Sure. Whatever."

"You used to like him," says Kevin.

"He's okay to hang out with," says Jimmy. "But not all of us are into fucking robots."

"It's not because he's a robot," says Kevin.

"It's gross," says Jimmy.

Kevin's not going to get into detail about what he does with Chris, but it's not gross. "Why?" he asks.

"Uh, because it is?" says Jimmy.

Kevin snorts. "You're a child," he says. "I hope they teach you something at Hogwarts."

"I'll give all the house elves your number," says Jimmy. They hug goodbye.

 

Kevin lets Chris control the music on the drive upstate, which means they hear every different kind of thing there is, organized in no way Kevin can follow. But every time Kevin starts to get impatient, the next song is one he loves. He has no idea how Chris is doing it.

Chris is a quiet driving companion. When Kevin glances over at him, he’s usually looking out the window. “Do you know how to drive?” Kevin asks.

“I might,” says Chris. “I could try.” After that he watches the road, and Kevin’s hands on the wheel, and looks back at the cars behind them when Kevin does.

Kevin points out where he’d turn off to go to practice, and Chris says, “This is far,” wonderingly.

“We’re less than halfway to the house,” says Kevin.

“But you come this far every other day.”

“Usually, yeah.”

“It’s just far away,” says Chris.

 

They stop at a supermarket about half an hour away from the house, and Kevin asks Chris to come in with him because he needs the extra pair of hands. The store is pretty empty, anyway, early on a weekday afternoon. Chris looks relieved, and then curious, and he insists on walking down every aisle.

“Looking for anything?” Kevin asks.

“No,” says Chris. “It’s just interesting.”

Chris is interested in everything. Kevin wants to hold his hand. They’re in public, though, in Rangers territory, and if Chris isn’t immediately recognizable as a robot, he’s still obviously a man. So Kevin just rests a hand on Chris’s shoulder and steers him towards the checkout.

 

The turnoff for the house is easy to miss, and Kevin misses it. “Where are we?” he asks Chris, and hands him his phone with Maps open. Chris types in a set of coordinates and hands it back.

“It’s really attractive that you can do, like, everything,” says Kevin. Chris grins like Kevin’s being funny, but he means it.

Once Kevin knows exactly where they are, he finds the driveway easily. It’s long—long enough that Kevin thinks he’s made a mistake, but Chris assures him that they’re in the right place. And after a few minutes of bare trees and the occasional evergreen, they emerge into the sunlight, drive up a hill, and arrive at the house.

It looks different from the pictures, which were all taken in the summer, but it’s cute: small but not cramped, not old, but not super modern. Lived in. Kevin finds the key taped to the drainpipe and struggles with the lock while Chris starts bringing their stuff from the car.

“Let me,” says Chris, and gets it open on the first try. If he was anyone else Kevin would feel stupid, but he’s Chris, and he can do things other people can’t. Kevin fetches the last of the bags from the car and follows him inside.

 

After they put the food away, Kevin backs Chris up against the counter and kisses him, because they’re alone and there are no bratty practically-cousins around to disapprove, and because he wants to. Chris’s hands come up to his chest, then down to his ass, pulling Kevin against him. Kevin smiles and kisses the corner of Chris’s mouth. Chris kisses Kevin’s neck, and when Kevin tips his head back, he moves down and presses his tongue against the juncture of Kevin’s neck and shoulder.

“Chris,” says Kevin, breathless. “I wasn’t trying to start anything.”

“Okay,” says Chris, but when they’ve finished checking out the rest of the house, he pulls Kevin down to the couch, onto his lap, and kisses the base of Kevin’s throat.

“Chris,” Kevin protests, but he ducks his head and catches Chris’s mouth with his, and they make out for a while. Chris’s hands keep going to the waistband of Kevin’s pants. Kevin doesn’t know why he’s not encouraging Chris. There’s just…stuff they need to do. And Kevin doesn’t want Chris to feel like Kevin just brought him here for sex. Still, he always kind of wants Chris.

“You want?” he asks, and Chris’s hands immediately go to Kevin’s fly. Kevin gets his hands under Chris’s shirt, pressing softly on the skin over Chris’s ribs. Kevin overloads Chris’s touch sensor twice before Chris makes him come, which he’s pretty sure means he wins.

After dinner, they build a fire in the fireplace. Or, Kevin builds it, drawing on fading memories of campfires, and then spends a good fifteen minutes failing to light it. Chris can’t get it to stay lit either, but after a couple of minutes of trying he says, “Doesn’t the air have to go somewhere?” So Kevin opens the flue, and after that it’s easy.

“What would I do without you?” Kevin asks.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” asks Chris. Jimmy taught him about rhetorical questions a couple of weeks after he arrived.

“Yeah, it is,” Kevin says, pulling Chris against him on the couch. He was okay without Chris, actually, but this is better.

There are snowshoes by the back door, and last week’s snowfall is still pristine up here. It’s cold and clear and sunny in the morning, and Kevin wants to get outside and move. Chris is less enthusiastic. He thinks the concept of snowshoes is cool, though.

“So try it out,” says Kevin. “You can see how if feels, and if you don’t like it we’ll come back in.”

“You don’t have to come back in with me,” says Chris.

“Maybe you won’t want to come back in at all,” says Kevin, but he doesn’t know if snowshoeing was a good idea for Chris’s first outdoor activity. He should have waited for warm weather and golf. He could see Chris liking golf.

“It’s really empty out there,” says Chris.

“Just try,” says Kevin. “Please?”

“Okay,” says Chris, but he doesn’t look happy about it.

Kevin helps attach the snowshoes to Chris’s new winter boots, then does his own. Behind the house, there’s a wide, smooth slope down to the woods below. Kevin knows what Chris means about it being empty, but it feels great to him, space stretching out in every direction. He wishes there was a pond. He wants to skate.

He squeezes Chris’s hand. “Ten minutes,” he says. “I think you’ll get used to it, but if you don’t we’ll go back in.”

Chris nods and follows Kevin away from the house. He gets the hang of walking in snowshoes almost immediately, because Chris is good at everything.

“Okay?” Kevin asks.

Chris looks up at the sky. “At least in the city there are buildings.”

“Why don’t you like it?” Kevin asks. “Having space, I mean.”

“I think I’m just built for inside.”

They walk in silence for another five minutes, until they’re closer to the woods than the house. When they pause again, Chris says, “It is beautiful,” quietly and reluctantly, and more to himself than to Kevin. 

“You okay to keep going for a bit?” Kevin asks. Chris nods. 

He seems more relaxed when they reach the trees, and Kevin doesn’t know if that’s about getting used to being outdoors or if he just likes that they’re not out in the open anymore. 

“Want to explore?” Kevin asks. 

The snow covers a lot of the underbrush, so there are clear paths between the trees, at least along the edges. Chris offers to get rid of the bushes that stop them from moving deeper into the woods.

“No,” says Kevin. “I’m not…trying to get anywhere. We can have a nice walk wherever. I just wanted to see what was here. Get some exercise.”

“I’m not like you,” says Chris. “Nothing’s going to change about my body if I move more or less. Walking doesn’t make me feel anything.”

“Okay,” says Kevin. “You like seeing new stuff, though. Right?”

“Yeah,” says Chris. He looks around again. “It’s really pretty.”

“Yeah,” says Kevin. “And snow. Snow is cool.”

Chris looks around. “It’s very white?” he offers.

Kevin laughs. “That too, but…you can—we used to play in it.”

“When you were a child?” Chris asks.

“Yeah. And at college,” Kevin admits. “You can have snowball fights, and build forts, and snowmen, and stuff.”

“I think I saw that on a TV show,” says Chris. “Are snowmen kind of blobby?”

“Snowmen are very blobby,” says Kevin. “Hey, come here.” 

He walks out into the open again and looks around. Snowmen aren’t that exciting, and if he starts a snowball fight Chris will probably destroy him. He bends down to unclip his snowshoes. Chris looks concerned, and Kevin grins up at him. “You’re really cute, you know that?”

Chris smiles back. “What are you doing?”

“Making a snow angel,” says Kevin. He steps over to a clear patch of snow, his feet sinking in deep. There’s too much snow for this to work well, but he falls back and lets himself sink into the snow for a moment before he starts moving his arms and legs. The last time Kevin did this was junior year, he thinks, drunk and on his way back to his dorm after a party. He’d stumbled and fallen and insisted that he’d done it on purpose. Johnny hadn’t believed him, but he’d made a snow angel, too. They’d messed up the silhouettes when they got up, but when Kevin walked past the next afternoon they were still recognizable.

Chris comes into view above him. “You’re flapping your arms,” says Chris. 

Kevin giggles. “I’m making a shape,” he says. “An angel. With wings?”

Chris watches him for a while longer and then says, “Okay,” and sits down to take off his snowshoes. “It feels nice,” Kevin hears him say a moment later. Kevin sits up. Chris is already out of view.

“I don’t think snow likes me,” says Chris. Kevin gets up and goes over to look, and laughs until he can’t breathe, because Chris is melting the snow around him. He’s sunk down far enough that Kevin can see hints of dark earth underneath the melting snow.

“I could lower my temperature, but I think it’s too late.” says Chris. 

That sets Kevin off again. “It’s okay,” he finally gets out, though giggles. “You’re a different kind of snow angel.” He sits down on top of Chris, straddling him, and bends to kiss him. 

“I could try in another spot,” Chris insists. “I can be colder.”

“Another time,” says Kevin. “I like you warm.”

Kevin’s not actually that cold—snowshoeing warmed him up, and he’s got a heavy coat and the sun is shining. But there’s something about Chris’s heat that always draws him in. He puts his hands inside of the jacket he made Chris wear and lies against Chris’s chest. 

“This isn’t a snow thing, right?” asks Chris. “Sitting on me?”

“Just a me thing,” says Kevin. If he moves up a little…he kisses Chris, and Chris’s mouth is even warmer than the rest of him, even with the cool distilled water that runs through it when he’s not using it for cleaning products. Kevin always wonders how Chris keeps track of which thing to pipe into his mouth. He’s never once gotten a mouthful of soap. Chris’s tongue strokes the roof of Kevin’s mouth, and Kevin shivers. “I love your tongue,” he says. “The rest of you, too, but.”

“You’re aroused,” murmurs Chris, arching up underneath him.

Kevin laughs. “Say ‘hard.’”

“Hard,” Chris repeats. “They don’t talk a lot in porn. Do you want a blowjob?” 

No one’s ever turned him on and made him laugh at the same time like Chris. “Yes,” says Kevin. He scoots forward, fumbles with his fly. The cold air is startling on his dick, but Chris’s mouth is so warm—hot—and the cold air keeps his head clear. He can’t take his eyes off Chris’s hands and mouth on him, and he comes faster than he wants, all over Chris’s face.

Kevin licks his lips. “My turn to clean you up, this time,” he says. He lowers his mouth to Chris’s face and carefully licks it clean. He’s not going to get hard again right now, but he gets almost halfway there, just from the taste of himself and Chris’s smooth skin.

When he sits up, Chris’s eyes are wide and kind of intense. He holds Kevin’s gaze for a long moment.

 

They’re both wet and muddy when they get back to the house, and Kevin takes all his clothes off right by the door. Chris sheds his boots and jacket and the heavy sweatpants Kevin lent him. He doesn’t have anything on underneath. It’s not really a surprise, because Kevin knows Chris doesn’t wear underwear, but he’s never actually seen Chris with his pants off before.

“Take your shirt off, too,” says Kevin.

“Why?” asks Chris.

“Because I’ve never seen you naked,” says Kevin.

Chris pulls off his shirt. “I don’t look nice, like you do,” he says.

“You look interesting,” says Kevin, honestly. Chris’s ass and crotch really do look like a mannequin’s, but his legs are as human as his arms. Kevin reaches for him, touches the crease of Chris’s thigh, where one kind of skin changes to the other. He moves his finger back and forth. Darker, lighter. Human-like, not. “How does it feel?” he asks.

“I feel it here,” Chris says, resting his hand on his thigh. “I feel it a lot more here.” He moves his hand to his stomach. 

Kevin rests his hand next to Chris’s. “Tell me how it feels.”

“It’s just touch,” says Chris. “I don’t know if it’s like what you feel when I touch you. But I like it. Being touched. And it’s more intense here.” He gestures at his middle.

“I like touching you,” says Kevin, and he keeps doing it until Chris’s voice goes fast and unintelligible.

 

Kevin turns on the TV for the All Star skills stuff, but he thinks Chris might be more into it than he is. He likes seeing the guys he knows—he’s seen Johnny and Brady hanging out in the background of a couple of shots, which makes him smile—but he feels like it gets less funny every year. The guys there look like they’re having fun, though.

“Do you think you’ll go, one year?” Chris asks.

“Maybe,” says Kevin. “Probably not.” Thinking about it makes him kind of uncomfortable.

“You’re good, though,” says Chris. “Very good.”

“Thanks,” says Kevin. He turns and kisses Chris’s shoulder and then rests his head there briefly. “I know I’m pretty good,” he says. “But I’m not—I’m never going to be that one guy on my team. Or even one of those two or three guys. Which is kind of nice, because if I was I probably wouldn’t be on that great a team.” He’s quiet for a moment, watching the fastest skaters do their thing. “It would be cool to go.”

Chris leans into him a little more, but doesn’t say anything. 

Kevin spends most of the rest of it telling Chris about the guys who are there—people he’s played with, people he thinks it would be cool to play with, people he’s trained with. All the Boston guys. He ends up mostly talking about Johnny. 

“He’s my best friend,” he explains. “I mean, I’ve got a lot of friends, and I love them, and I don’t get to hang out with Johnny like I did in college, but he’s still just…” Kevin shrugs. “He’s the greatest. I think you’ll really like him.”

“I’d like to meet him,” says Chris. He doesn’t sound as enthusiastic as Kevin would like, but he’ll like Johnny when he meets him, for sure.

“You’re going to,” says Kevin. “He’ll be in New York in, like, two weeks? Less than that, I think. His team’s playing the Devils before us, and the Isles after, so we’re going to get to hang out.”

“I might have to spend a lot of time with Ellie and McLaren that week,” says Chris, and maybe he will, but Kevin is 100% sure that’s an excuse. 

“Do you not want to meet him?” Kevin asks.

“I don’t know,” says Chris.

“Why?”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Chris asks. “What if he thinks I’m strange? What if I don’t like him?” He looks at Kevin. “I can think of a lot more bad possibilities.”

“Don’t,” says Kevin, but he’s smiling a little now. “It’s going to be fine. You guys will like each other.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you,” says Kevin. “And I know him. And you both love me, so.”

“Okay,” says Chris, after a moment. “I believe you.” But after a moment, he says, “A different kind of love, right?”

“Definitely a different kind of love,” says Kevin, and hugs Chris tightly.

 

Kevin doesn’t put his clothes back on all day. It’s warm, and there’s no one around, but mostly it’s because he thinks Chris likes to look at him. Even when Chris gets up to clean the house in the evening he keeps looking. Kevin’s stretched out on the rug in front of the fire, and he really wonders, every time he catches Chris’s eyes on him, what it is that Chris likes. He thought the woods were pretty, but Kevin’s not pretty. 

Whatever the reason, he likes it when Chris looks at him. Kevin rolls onto his back and stretches to his full length. His body is nice, he knows, but the one downside of dating a robot is that they’re not going to look at your body and think you’re hot.

Kevin’s told Chris he doesn’t have to clean as much as he does, but he knows Chris does it because he actually wants to, so Kevin just watches and waits patiently for Chris to come back to the fireplace. Finally Chris adds a couple of logs to the fire and comes back to sit by Kevin.

“Hey,” says Kevin, smiling up at him. “Got your cleaning fix?”

Chris looks a little surprised. “Yeah, I did,” he says. “Do you think I like cleaning because I’m made to do it?”

“I don’t know,” says Kevin. “Would that be bad?”

Chris sits down. “I like knowing I have choices,” he says slowly.

“Oh,” says Kevin. Of course Chris wants to know that stuff hasn’t been chosen for him. “Chris. Of course you do?”

“Do you really think so?” Chris asks.

“Definitely,” says Kevin. “You…if you didn’t like it, underneath, you would feel that. People—everyone likes to do the stuff they’re good at. You’re good at cleaning because you’re made to be, but you like it because…because you’re you.”

“Yeah?” says Chris. 

“Yeah,” says Kevin. He thinks hard. He’s not as smart as Chris, but he can try to be when Chris needs that from him. “Remember this morning when you said exercising doesn’t make you feel good? Vacuuming and scrubbing the counters does make you feel good, because your body is for that. My body is for—for moving, I guess. Does that mean I shouldn’t like exercising?” He looks at Chris. “Am I making sense? I don’t actually know what I’m talking about anymore.”

“I think so,” Chris says. “You’re saying that enjoying cleaning isn’t that different from enjoying you touching me. It’s just something my body does.”

Kevin blinks. “I don’t know if that’s what I was saying,” he says. “But it’s true.”

Chris smiles at him. “I think it was. Thank you.” He leans down and kisses Kevin.

“Mmm,” says Kevin, and pulls Chris closer. Chris strokes his side and he shivers.

“Are you cold?” Chris asks.

“No,” says Kevin. “Just, when you touch me like that…”

Chris does it again, and gets the same reaction. He looks, Kevin suddenly thinks, like he could shoot laser beams from his eyes. Maybe he can.

“What are you thinking?” Kevin asks. “When you look at me—what are you thinking right now?”

“I want to do things to you,” Chris says. “I want to make you feel things.” Kevin’s mouth goes dry, even before Chris adds, “I want to make you make noise.”

Kevin stares at him. “You can do anything to me,” he says. “Anything you want.”

“Okay,” says Chris. He looks at Kevin for a moment longer, then stands up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He is, and he’s pressing his side access panel closed. Kevin means to ask what he’s doing, but then Chris is crouched over him, kissing him, and Kevin’s only thinking about Chris’s tongue in his mouth and his hands in Kevin’s hair.

“You’re so good at this,” he says, when Chris finally stops. “You’re—oh,” he gasps. Chris’s mouth is on his nipple, sucking lightly. “That’s good.”

Chris keeps going until Kevin’s hips are shifting uneasily, looking for any kind of pressure on his dick. “Can I touch my cock?” he asks. He doesn’t know why he feels like he should ask, but it’s a good instinct. Chris shakes his head and says, “Not yet, please,” and then moves his mouth to Kevin’s other nipple.

Kevin shared a room with his brother for a bunch of years, so when he learned how to get off he learned to be quiet while he did it. He’s never made a lot of noise during sex. But when Chris finally puts his hand on Kevin’s dick, he moans. Chris’s thumb strokes over Kevin’s thigh, and Kevin remembers that he’d asked for noise. 

“I can be louder,” he offers, a little breathless.

Chris shakes his head. “It’s not the same if you’re doing it on purpose.”

“You want to work for it?” Kevin says, smiling.

“I want you not to be able to help it,” says Chris.

“Chris,” says Kevin. “Fuck. Touch me again.”

Chris wraps his hand loosely around Kevin’s dick. “You said I could do whatever I want,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Kevin. “What do you want?”

“Turn over,” says Chris. “Get on your knees.”

Kevin scrambles to obey. “I like it when you tell me what to do,” he says. He’s only just realized that himself, but it seems like an important thing for Chris to know.

Kevin thinks he knows what’s happening here, but the next think he feels isn’t Chris’s finger stroking over his hole; it’s his tongue. Kevin’s whine is completely involuntary. Chris should like it a lot.

It’s only when Chris’s tongue starts to press into him that Kevin realizes how slippery it is. Chris doesn’t have saliva, just distilled water—unless he’s siphoning something in from one of the containers in his side. 

“Oh my god,” says Kevin. “Is that—did you lube up your tongue?”

“Good?” says Chris. He sounds smug.

“Nnnggh,” says Kevin.

 

Sunday Kevin finds a sled in the closet, and really, really hopes Chris will be willing to give it a try. He is, and only makes a couple of faces about going outside again. He sits behind Kevin and wraps his arms around Kevin’s waist.

“What do you think?” Kevin asks, when they reach the bottom of the hill.

“That felt strange,” says Chris.

“Good strange or bad strange?”

“Interesting strange,” says Chris. “Can we do it again?”

Kevin grins. “Of course.”

Chris turns out to be great at steering. Kevin is surprised, and also not surprised, and also impressed. It’s his usual reaction to Chris, basically. Chris won’t say he likes it, but he keeps wanting to go again, and eventually Kevin goes inside for lunch and leaves Chris to keep sledding by himself.

“Something inside me keeps getting confused about which direction I’m pointing,” he explains when he comes in. “It’s fun.”

“And being outside?”

“Not as bad,” says Chris. “I’m more used to it now. But I can still feel the emptiness all the time.”

 

After lunch it snows again, and Kevin lights the fire. Chris sits by the window and watches the snow come down.

“You can go outside,” Kevin suggests. He doesn’t want to get up again, but he might, to watch Chris experience his first snowfall. If it is his first snowfall. “Have you been out when it’s snowed in the city?”

Chris shakes his head. “Rick took the kids out when it was snowing one time, but I didn’t go with.”

“You should definitely go out now, then,” Kevin says. He follows Chris to the door and watches from there as Chris walks a few paces from the house with bare feet and thin clothes, and stands under the falling snow. It’s coming down in big, thick flakes, and Kevin sees them landing on Chris’s hand and disappearing.

“They melt on me, too,” Kevin says, because he thinks Chris might be disappointed.

“Oh?” says Chris, and then “I’m going to make myself colder.”

A few minutes later, the flakes landing on Chris’s head and arms and shoulders start collecting instead of melting. Kevin grabs his coat and steps outside to watch.

He snaps a picture of Chris with little piles of snow on his head and shoulders and sends it to Gracia and Brady and Jessica and Jimmy. He gets a string of emojis back from Gracia. Jimmy replies, “freak,” but it’s followed a little later by “that’s pretty cool tho.”

“Are you trying to turn into a snowman or what?” Kevin says.

“I’m not round enough for that,” says Chris.

“Too bad,” says Kevin. “Having fun?”

Chris tilts his head to the side, and most of the snow falls off. Suddenly he smiles. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” says Kevin. Chris’s feet are covered in snow, and Kevin kind of wants to bring him inside and sit him in front of the fire and wrap him in blankets, even though he knows Chris doesn’t need any of that. Instead he goes back inside and makes himself some hot chocolate. When Chris comes back in—Kevin checks the window; it’s stopped snowing—Kevin says, “So, being outside. Not so bad sometimes?”

Chris smiles. “Maybe,” he says. He sits down next to Kevin. “It feels nice. Snow.”

“Yeah, it does,” says Kevin.

 

They watch the All Star Game, and it’s fun, at least in bits. Kevin’s favorite part might be that he’s cuddling with Chris while he watches. He loves hockey, but he’s never been one of those guys who care more about it than anything else in their lives, and he’s pretty happy with some of the other things in his life right now.

He pauses at the window on his way to bed, and suddenly wonders if the sky is as clear as it was this morning, before the snow started. There’s a 95% chance Chris is going to be really into stars.

“Hey, Chris,” he says, stuffing his feet into his boots and grabbing his coat. “Come outside. I want to see something.”

Chris follows him outside. Kevin looks up, and—yes. He points up at the sky. “Look.”

Chris looks. Kevin, after a moment, looks at Chris.

Chris says, “Those are stars,” like he’s almost positive he’s right.

“Yeah,” says Kevin. He takes Chris’s hand, and they walk a little way away from the house. “I think that’s the Little Dipper,” says Kevin. 

Chris looks. “Yes,” he says, after a moment.

“I don’t know any other constellations,” says Kevin. 

“I can look some up,” says Chris.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Kevin walks over to the car and sits down on the hood. Chris joins him a minute later and points. 

“There’s the Big Dipper, kind of near the little one,” he says. Kevin doesn’t see it at first, but Chris keeps describing it until he does. Then he reads out excerpts from the Wikipedia article.

“Cool,” says Kevin.

“I know, isn’t it?” says Chris. “That one’s Cassiopeia.” He points out Orion, too, and talks about Greek myths, and Kevin leans on him and enjoys his voice and his enthusiasm and doesn’t take in a whole lot of information.

“Are you tired?” Chris asks.

“Only a little,” says Kevin. “You can keep going, if you want. I like listening to you.”

Chris laughs. “Do you care what I talk about?” 

“A little,” Kevin says again. “Why, is there anything you want to talk about?”

“No,” says Chris. He lies back against the hood of the car and looks up at the sky.

“What are you thinking about?” Kevin asks.

“The stars, mostly,” Chris says. “You, a little.”

Kevin swallows. “I really love you,” he says. “A lot.”

“I know,” says Chris. “Me too.”

Kevin knows, too. There’s a lot he doesn’t understand about Chris, but he’s sure of him and sure of himself. And the stuff he doesn’t understand, he can ask about.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about, um, sex,” he says.

“You know more than I do,” says Chris, smiling a little.

“I don’t know what it’s like for you,” Kevin says. Chris looks at him expectantly.

“I guess I want to know what you like,” says Kevin. “I mean, I know what things you like to do, but…why do you like them? You can’t—touching me can’t feel good for you the way touching you does for me.”

“You don’t have buttons,” says Chris, after a short silence. “My controls are hidden, but you just don’t have any, at all. So I like things that can—I like feeling your pulse under your skin. The things your face does when you think about sex. I can make your penis hard. I can stretch your anus with my fingers. I can—the noises you make—“ he breaks off, and Kevin reaches for him.

“No, wait,” says Chris. Kevin waits.

Chris sits with his head bent, and Kevin watches him. No one’s ever said anything like that to him. No one’s ever paid that much attention to him. It’s only been a month since they started this, and four or five since a technician pulled away some packing material and Kevin thought, “Wow, he’s hot.” Kevin hasn’t even told his family about Chris yet, but that’s okay. There’s time. This is going to last forever.

“That’s what it was at the beginning,” Chris says finally. “That’s all it was. I wanted you to feel good, and I wanted to be the reason it was happening. But things change, sometimes, inside me. When you bought me, I wasn’t like this. I didn’t know what love was. But I changed. I—rewrote myself to love you back.”

“Chris,” Kevin whispers. He’s freezing, but he doesn’t want to go inside. Chris gives him one warm hand to wrap his two cold ones around.

“I don’t know what I did,” Chris says. “But when I touch you, I want to keep touching you. Not just because you like it. Because I do. I want—I love you,” he finishes. “And I keep making loving you into more.”

“Okay,” says Kevin softly. He turns and slides his hands under Chris’s coat and leans against him. Chris’s arms wrap around him, and he’s warm enough that Kevin doesn’t really mind the cold touching him all the places Chris isn’t. It’s late, but he’s not sure how late.

“Do you want to stay out and watch the sun rise?” Kevin asks.

“Yes,” says Chris.


End file.
